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(2) The Flying Doctor

In 1936 a company called National Productions, backed by Gaumont-British and linked
to the new National Studios complex in Sydney, was established to make international
productions in Australia. Their first – and, as it turned out, only – film was The Flying
Doctor, made by British director Miles Mander and starring American matinee idol
Charles Farrell. The storyline was built around the famous service which provides
medical care in Australia’s outback, and included interesting ingredients like a cameo
role for cricketer Don Bradman, then at the height of his fame. The film was released in
Australia and Britain but proved only a modest success, and eventually dropped from
sight. By the mid 1970s, when it figured on a list of titles for which our Archive was
searching, no copies were known to exist.
One day, workmen in the Sydney suburb of Lane Cove were clearing a new building
site. An early task was to demolish a small pillbox structure with steel doors, which
stood in the way of the new building. Unable to open them by other means, a workman
cut through the steel doors with an oxy-acetylene torch, revealing an interior stacked
with hundreds of cans of what turned out to be nitrate film. Along with other site refuse,
the cans were loaded onto a truck and sent off to the nearest rubbish tip.
As the truck passed the offices of the local Council, an alert staff member noticed what
it was carrying, and immediately rushed out and gave chase in his car. Reaching the
rubbish tip, he persuaded the driver to stack the cans in a safe place and contacted Film
Australia, a government film production unit located in the nearly suburb of Lindfield.
They in turn contacted the National Library, and the film was ultimately transferred into
the National Film Archive collection.
Among other things, it yielded a nitrate release print of The Flying Doctor. Delighted and
intrigued, I sat down to preview the print on an Intercine. It was good, involving stuff. But
as the story neared an insoluble crisis point at the end of reel 8, it ran out. That was it.
The last reel was missing!

For two years I wondered how the story ended! Then, unexpectedly, a routine search
list sent to the National Film Archive in London - while drawing a blank on all the other
titles – turned up a print of The Flying Doctor at Rank, who proved happy to donate it to
us. Finally, I’d get to see the last reel! The box arrived. I unpacked it. To my dismay the
Rank copy, too, was only 8 reels long. I worked through it on the Intercine. Clearly it
was the same film, but it had been radically rearranged and shortened: the middle and
opening sections had been swapped around, and other changes made. I worried till I
got to the end of reel 7, which cut off at … precisely the same point as reel 8 in the
“Lane Cove” print! So the final reel would serve as common to both versions! Came the
big moment: reel 8 unfolded, and at last I knew how the story ended!

Why were there two versions? This was actually the fate of many Australian features in
the nitrate years – and beyond. Released as “A” films at home, they would often end up
as “B” pictures in Britain or America – if they got a release there at all. The original
negative would be sent for printing to the overseas distributor, who would often recut
and/or retitle the film to enhance its marketability. (So The Adorable Outcast became
White Cargoes of the South Seas, On Our Selection became Down on the Farm, Walk
into Paradise turned into Walk into Hell, Forty Thousand Horsemen became Thunder
over the Desert.) The negative, and the trims, would never return to Australia – it was
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